Compatibility Administrator User's Guide

Updated: May 31, 2012

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Vista

The Compatibility Administrator tool helps you resolve potential application-compatibility issues before deploying a new version of Windows to your organization. Compatibility Administrator provides the following:

Compatibility fixes, compatibility modes, and AppHelp messages that you can use to resolve specific compatibility issues.

A query tool that you can use to search for installed compatibility fixes on your local computers.

The following flowchart shows the steps for using the Compatibility Administrator tool to create your compatibility fixes, compatibility modes, and AppHelp messages.

Important

Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) installs a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of the Compatibility Administrator tool. You must use the 32-bit version to create and work with custom databases for 32-bit applications, and the 64-bit version to create and work with custom databases for 64-bit applications.